“STORIES ARE BEING REDUCED!” Jules throws his arms in the air.
Tina shushes him. Then she addresses him sternly, as if to a dog: “Sit.” And Jules sits.
Patricia sighs. “But it is literature, Jules. You can’t deny that.”
Jules shakes his head, cursing. Thomas can still hear Jules’s and Patricia’s voices, their rising and falling; they sound more subdued now, but he can no longer make out what they’re saying. It’s just sound. He’s gliding through the darkened basement. He can feel the money against his belly. His heart hammers hard and irregularly, and on his way through the darkness he bumps into something. A body. A large, warm body blocking his way. And then, as if bellowing from some deep cave, a voice booms right in his ear: “Who’s there?” There’s a choking embrace. Flesh, damp skin, matted hair. He’s trapped by bones and flesh. He’s held in this embrace, this strong and living thing that won’t let him go. But is it alive? Or is it a zombie? He starts, frightened, and is yanked brutally from his seat of his own volition and tumbles to the floor. The others stare at him curiously. “What happened?” Patricia asks.
He shakes his head. “I just need to go to the bathroom.”
He splashes water on his face and washes his hands. He breathes deeply, tries to suck the air all the way to his diaphragm. But the presence of the overwhelming body hangs inescapably on him. There was nothing human about it, and yet: Who’s there? And what is it? What was it? He’s tipsy, but not drunk. Or is he? Did he fall asleep? Was he dreaming? He returns to the others, who’ve apparently not changed topics. Jules shouts: “Pass me a smoke, Thomas!” and impatiently extends his hand. “If they don’t want to learn anything, then they can just piss off!” He looks up, a wild expression in his eyes. Tina glances apologetically at Patricia, and Thomas lets Jules have a cigarette, though smoking is forbidden in the apartment. Tina glowers in dismay as the two men smoke, no doubt thinking about her daughter, the pure, unblemished body in the bedroom.
“There’s a lot written about the body,” Patricia says. “We also see it in the visual arts. Gender, the body, a new understanding of the biological condition. It’s quite different from the theory observing gender and body as something learned, something one bears on you. Now you bear it in you. It’s really interesting. And . . .” “I completely disagree,” Jules coughs. “It doesn’t have jack shit to do with gender and body. Let’s have more gender and body, but not if one has to hear some fucking narcissist or other befouling one’s brain with his ridiculous life story.”
“You’re hopeless,” Patricia grins, setting down her coffee mug. “Yes, he is,” Tina smiles, relieved. No, he’s not hopeless, Thomas thinks. And now you can go home. I can’t take any more. But they make no motion to leave. Jules looks as though he needs to cool off. He smokes and stares out the window.
Tina hurriedly asks how Patricia’s doing, and she explains a little about her work with the next big exhibition at the museum. She’s the director of the museum store. They’re about to order related art books. She’s having trouble getting the exhibition’s poster ready, and the catalog’s still unfinished, the graphic designer is impossible. Chitchat. Something about a yoga teacher. Vacation plans. A few spiteful remarks about a mutual girlfriend’s divorce. Jules has zoned out, disheartened, tired. He’s dropped ashes onto the floor. Finally Tina stands. “We should go home now. Stella gets up at 6:00 A.M.” Reluctantly, Jules rises. They gather Stella’s things, which are scattered around the apartment. It takes an eternity. At last Tina scoops up the sleeping girl. Patricia tucks the blanket tightly around her. Jules is already out in the hallway. “I’m sorry,” Tina whispers. “I don’t know what got into him.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Patricia says, caressing Stella’s cheek. “We’re friends.” Thomas follows them down and helps them pack the trunk. Stella whimpers sleepily in her car seat. Jules gives Thomas a long, firm hug. “Good to see you,” he breathes, “and stay away from that book Patricia read. Not only does it sully the reader, it sullies itself. It’s unbearable, Thomas.” He seems genuinely unhappy. Then they drive slowly, as though in search of something, down the street. He shouldn’t be driving, Thomas thinks, the man’s drunk. But it’s too late now. He lights a cigarette and walks around the block. The streetlights are orange. The light forms soft, particulate clusters under the lamps. Everything seems surreal. As though the law of gravity has been abolished, and at any moment he could float up into the night sky. It’s not windy anymore. The feeling of the animal or the body, or whatever it was, has finally left him. He feels completely empty. Like being surrounded by some other species, he thinks, that’s what it’s like. Upper class snobs. I’m still only just barely a part of that world. I’m playing myself. But I’m not anything more than what I’m playing. Never ever. It’s disgraceful. He grinds his cigarette with his foot. Then it starts to rain. A fine, insistent rain.
Back in the apartment Patricia has cleared the table; there’s a cross breeze because she’s airing out, and the apartment is ice cold. She’s already begun washing the dishes. When he enters the kitchen she turns, her hands dripping. She looks directly at him. “I want a baby, Thomas,” she says.
He awakes in a daze, a nasty taste in his mouth, the telephone ringing in the living room. Patricia’s side of the bed is empty, her duvet having slid halfway onto the floor. His body seems petrified: warm, immovable. Naked, he gets to his feet. The telephone rings a second time. It’s Maloney.
“Where are you? It’s 10:00 A.M. We’re getting a big delivery in half an hour. Are you sick, or what the hell’s going on?”
He mumbles a promise to hurry. His cock hangs loose and pale between his legs. His pubic hair’s crawling toward his bellybutton, as though on its way to his head. Scratching his back, shivering, he stumbles to the bathroom, turns on the shower. Patricia left no note on the kitchen table, as she usually does whenever she leaves without first waking him. After Jules and Tina had gone, he’d been too worn-out to discuss having a baby versus not having a baby, and she’d become irate and disappointed, telling him that he had no dreams for the future, that he had zero ambition. He’d gone to bed. Had collapsed and practically fainted into sleep.
A half-empty cup of coffee and a small bottle of red nail polish are the only traces of her. He downs a glass of water and eats a banana as he buttons his shirt. Outside the rain has ceased, but the air is bone-chillingly cold and full of moisture. He trots to the station and is barely able to squeeze into the packed train car, where people stand like sardines in a barrel, with their bodily odors and their bad breath and their pretty faces and their ugly warts; with their youth and their age and their illnesses and their morning eyes, full of disgust or indifference or radiant with resolve and expectation. He presses himself between a fat businessman reeking of aftershave and a schoolgirl wearing an enormous backpack; she’s listening to music and holding the safety bar to keep her balance. The backpack thumps into Thomas each time the train halts. He’s never late. Now he’ll have to listen to Maloney ribbing him the rest of the day. But Maloney’s in ridiculously good spirits this Monday, bursting with energy and barking orders; he and Peter have already begun unpacking the delivery, which sits in a small mountain of cardboard boxes on the floor right inside the door. Annie slashes them open with a box cutter, removing items, while Maloney makes sure they’ve gotten what they’ve ordered and paid for. The atmosphere is good, focused; only Peter, as usual, is slow and shy. Thomas joins in, and the work agrees with him. It’s simple, it’s manageable: most of the boxes need to be taken to the basement and the products arranged properly, shelf by shelf, by number and name. The slick boxes have to be shoved into place and stacked and organized. Thomas knows the basement like he knows his own pocket; it’s their treasure chamber, and it has nothing in common with the dark, dusty labyrinth he’d rushed around in Saturday night. Now it feels as though that never happened, that it was all a dream, a fantasy, a figment of his imagination. He grows warm, he puts eight boxes of plastic folders on the shelf, he presses the felt-tip pen against